The Twins will go with their A-lineup for Thursday’s series finale after Joe Mauer, Jason Kubel, Mike Lamb and Adam Everett got a breather Wednesday.

History says this might be a tough day for Justin Morneau to end his early season skid. He is 1-for-7 (.143) for his career against Angels starter Ervin Santana. Manager Ron Gardenhire had this to say Wednesday night about Morneau’s 0-for-10 start:

“It’s early. It’s been three baseball games. And sometimes it takes a while to get going. All it takes is one good swing, and then he’ll take off and be fine. He’s pressing. He wants to hit, and he’s pressing a little bit. He’ll get some good pitches, they’ll make some mistakes and he’ll hit them, and then he’ll get going.”

Said Morneau: “Obviously you’d like to have some hits, so you have some numbers on the board and you don’t have to look up and see zeros. At the same time, you’re going to have stretches during the year when you go 0-for-10 or 0-for-whatever. it just stands out a little more when you don’t have any numbers up there. I’m confident it will turn around.”

ANGELS

1. Chone Figgins, 3B

2. Gary Matthews Jr., RF

3. Vladimir Guerrero, DH

4. Garret Anderson, LF

5. Torii Hunter, CF

6. Casey Kotchman, 1B

7. Howie Kendrick, 2B

8. Mike Napoli, C

9. Maicer Izturis, SS

Starting pitcher: RH Ervin Santana

TWINS

1. Carlos Gomez, CF

2. Joe Mauer, C (He is 4-for-6 with three RBI for his career off E. Santana.)

3. Michael Cuddyer, RF

4. Justin Morneau, 1B

5. Delmon Young, LF

6. Jason Kubel, DH

7. Mike Lamb, 3B

8. Brendan Harris, 2B

9. Adam Everett, SS

Starting pitcher: RH Kevin Slowey

Metrodome. First pitch: 12:10 p.m.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 am and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.